


Beautiful

by omegaxibir



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-09
Updated: 2013-04-09
Packaged: 2017-12-07 23:55:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/754568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/omegaxibir/pseuds/omegaxibir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Who will hold your hand,</em><br/><em>When it pulls you under?</em><br/>Loki wishes he could rise from his own ashes, transcend his limitations and his suffering the way that Victor does.<br/>Doom would not find Loki so captivating if he was not all genius and madman, a thousand things at once.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beautiful

Loki is beautiful.  
Doom does not feel ashamed to say it.  
Loki laughs when Doom tells him this, because he was different once. There was a time when he was young and full of life, when his skin was not so ashen and his bones were not so prominent under his flesh.  
He was naive once.  
And his bitterness had grown from the inside out.  
But Doom still thinks Loki is beautiful, features chiseled and sharp, those green eyes that could cut right through you, burn you to the core. He had a way of staring right through someone, and every time Loki would fix his gaze on his, Doom felt as though he could not hide anything, that scrutinizing, piercing gaze cutting through to his core and opening him up from the inside.  
Perhaps that was why he eventually removed his mask. Loki saw right through him anyway, was point was there in hiding his face?  
He would not find Loki so captivating if he did not look like he did, half genius and half madman, manic and untamed, all unruly black hair and dark circles under his eyes from sleepless nights, because his mind never let him rest, not really.  
But Loki was different once.  
"Do you mourn for the past?" Doom asks. He is reading some ancient tome in his armchair and Loki is curled up in his own, staring at the fire, lost in thought, in his own head.  
"No." he says, and his eyes flick from the fireplace to Victor and they are burning with a deeper intensity than the flames. "Would a man given sight, weep to be blind once more?"  
"People often say that ignorance is bliss."  
"Do you believe that, Victor?"  
"No."  
Loki scoffs. "I am not that man anymore. He was a fool. Whining. Pathetic."  
His voice rises slightly with each word, and Doom does not know if Loki hates himself, or hates the man he used to be, or hates everyone else.  
He looks back to his book and Loki stares back at the fire, and Victor steals glances at him over his book. His jaw is set and the shadows from the fire cast over his cheekbones. Doom does not feel guilt, though he thinks to himself that perhaps he should not have brought up the subject.  
But in his anger, Loki is beautiful.

Victor has not let anyone in, anyone close in a long time. Loki tells him he has a metal heart, metal skin, but that his spirit burns somewhere under all that steel. Victor does not feel like a mortal man. At times he does not feel entirely human. He is not sure if he is man or god or sorcerer or _machine._  
"Loki." he asks, as he works on a piece of his armor. His second skin. His _real_ skin, maybe. He is not sure anymore.  
"Yes?" Loki replies. He is reading. Lovecraft. He has been captivated by the tales of monsters and madness since Victor first showed them to him. Doom thinks it is almost tragically apt.  
"What manner of being am I?"  
Loki puts down the book. "What do you mean?"  
"I know you do not classify me along with other humans."  
"No, I don't." Loki says, and it is true. No other human Loki has ever encountered has such intellect, such _power,_ such a penchant for magic.  
"Then what am I to you?"  
Loki grins. "You are Doom."  
Victor narrows his eyes. Of course. Of _course_ he is Doom.  
"Victor, you are Doom, just as I am Loki. I have a hundred names and a thousand faces. I am Asgardian and Jotun, all at once, I am trickster and shapeshifter and woman and man. I am everything and I am nothing at all."  
"I understand."  
Loki nods, and picks up his book.  
He pauses.  
"It gets lonely, doesn't it Victor?"

Loki says he does not trust enough for love, and Doom says that he believes that it is illogical.  
But Victor can never say no when Loki looks at him with those blazing eyes, because he cannot stand when they go cold.  
And if anything, they are secure in the fact that they share the sort of solace only a creature all of its own can know.  
Their companionship is effortless. Natural.  
Their connection is profound, and often they hold entire conversations in silence. There are things they do not say out loud.  
When Loki looks at Victor and tells him to take off his mask, it is because he does not want to feel so desperately alone.  
When Victor takes Loki in his arms with no prior warning, it means the same. 

Doom is a scientist. He believes that if he is going to do something, he is going to do it properly. Thorough. Weighing every possible option. Taking his time.  
Bedding Loki is no exception.  
Sometimes Loki is everywhere at once, roaming hands and writhing limbs, and sometimes he is calmer, tangles his fingers in the sheets. But when Loki is being pleasured just right, he _laughs._ It is breathless and genuine, interspaced between gasps and sighs, but it is there and it is _beautiful._ And therein lies the payoff of Doom's attentions. He does not mind paying attention to Loki, because then he feels the focus is off of him. Off of his scars and his deformity, off of his skin, so rarely shown outside of his armor.  
But he is wrong.  
Loki pays attention to detail. He pays attention to Victor's muscles, working under his skin, and the way the scars on his face move as he sets his jaw. Because Loki thinks Victor is beautiful.  
He is tired of perfection. He grew up, spent most of his life around perfect, around beautiful, flawless. Dull. Boring.  
Victor is different. His face is not aesthetically beautiful but his scars give him character. He is scarred outside and in, and Loki embraces the flaws because they make him feel quite not so broken.  
And Victor _transcends._ Victor transcends mortal boundaries and suffering and disfiguration, a gypsy turned king, a man turned magician, and it makes him _beautiful._  
Loki wishes he could rise from his own ashes the way that Victor does.

"Victor." Loki says, breaking the silence between them.  
"Hm?"  
Loki turns onto his side, to look Victor in the eyes.  
"Let me feel your scars. I want to."  
Loki is looking right through him and Victor cannot say no. He nods.  
Loki reaches up and traces his fingertips along the raised tissue and presses a kiss to his shoulder.  
For a moment, Victor does not feel ugly and Loki does not feel quite so broken.


End file.
